Professional lawyer Godwin Edudzi Tameklo has said that it is not required to take or accept gifts for serving Ghana in one public role or another.
He made it clear that the person who gets an ex-gratia can choose to take it or not.
“The person who gets the gift doesn’t have to take it,” he said.
Togbe Afede XIV, the Agbogbomefia of the Asogli State, just gave back GHS365,392.67 that the state gave him as a gift for serving on the Council of State from 2017 to 2020.
In a statement, the business mogul said that he doesn’t think it’s fair to pay him ex gratia for a part-time job he did for the state and was paid for every month.
“I also want to say that my refusal of the payment was in line with my general dislike of giving huge gifts and other outrageous benefits to people who have volunteered to help our poor country,” he said in a statement.
But Mr. Tameklo, who is also an aide to former president John Dramani Mahama, said that it is why some Article 71 officeholders commit the payment of their allowances and other emoluments to specific projects.
He gave the example of how Mr. Mahama and his National Democratic Congress government took money out of the allowances of people who worked for them to pay for building CHP compounds all over the country.
“So, it’s not a big deal if a person who gets ex gratia money turns it down because of a principle he or she believes in,” he said.
He said this wasn’t new because First Lady Rebecca Akufo-Addo and Mrs. Samira Bawumia, the wife of Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia, both came back to the state in 2021 to collect their salaries.